‘Summer Placement’ is one of the crucial activities in the first year at a b-school. A good resume will fetch you the shortlists of your dream companies. Following are some tips to boost your resume building process.
1. Unless you have 10+ years of work experience or otherwise specified/ allowed by the recruiters, stick to one-page resume. Hiring Managers won’t spend more than 3-4 minutes on a resume when they have a stack of resumes to go through. Keep it short & simple. If Mr. Elon Musk can have a one-page resume, why can’t we, the mere mortals?
2. Prepare a ‘Master CV’ which consists of all the achievements and CV points. Depending upon the position/ role you are applying for, appropriate points from it can be used.
3. List down all the achievements in reverse chronological order starting from the most recent one.
4. Start each sentence/point with an action verb like Awarded, Ranked, Secured, Won etc.
5. Maintain consistency in font style, size and bullet style type. Use a sub bullet to highlight a sub point.
6. Use bold and italics at appropriate places to highlight important information. Overdoing it can ruin the resume.
7. Do not use any fancy colours, symbols or pictures unless you are applying for a position as an artist. Also, do not use flowery language like Multi-talented, dynamic person having rich, impeccable experience in C programming.
8. Quantify the achievements and work done to increase the impact. For ex:
If you secured 1st rank in your class, mention out of how many students you achieved it.
9. Do not use too many technical jargons when applying for a management role. Also, provide long form of all the abbreviations at their first occurrence in the resume.
10. Avoid writing unnecessary personal information like Address, Height, Weight, Skin Colour etc. This is a job application not a marriage proposal!
Even though a resume cannot guarantee a good job, it can definitely create a good first impression on the recruiters. So prepare your resume diligently and ace the placement season!
